Hammers` poor form continues

Monday 2 January 2006 00:10 BST

Reading heaped the pressure on former manager Alan Pardew after inflicting a fifth straight defeat on struggling West Ham at Upton Park.

Pardew will dismiss as paper talk suggestions he could be replaced by Portugal manager Luiz Felipe Scolari if a takeover of the club does go ahead. But the statistics do not make pleasant reading for him. West Ham have not won since the opening day of the season, they have not scored in 488 minutes of football and are yet to keep clean sheet all campaign.

Any hopes of rectifying that record were dashed after just one minute and 19 seconds when Seol Ki-Hyeon turned Yossi Benayoun inside out and beat Roy Carroll with a drive from 25 yards.

For newly-promoted Reading, victory meant a fourth successive Premiership game unbeaten - the kind of record Pardew enjoyed with West Ham last season.

West Ham dominated the game but were largely restricted to long-range efforts from Carlos Tevez, Jonathan Spector and Hayden Mullins.

Tevez created plenty of opportunities from deep but West Ham were impotent in front of goal. Even when Pardew made changes for the last 20 minutes luck abandoned them.

Matthew Etherington's low cross from the left flew inches ahead of Bobby Zamora's despairing dive and Benayoun's looped effort was cleared off the line by Reading's impressive midfielder Steve Sidwell.